I glance over at Rob and Juliet. He’s holding her just like he was at Fall Back on Friday. Delicately, but firmly. Like she’s something that might break or run away.
“Okay, Banquo. You ready?” Mrs. Barch asks.
“Yep,” Rob says, releasing Juliet.
“Banquo?” I whisper to Len, who’s still just standing there. “Who’s Banquo?”
He picks up a script off the floor and flips through it. Then he hands it to me, pointing at a name.
Great, so he’s in the play too? Just what I need, to watch the two of them onstage for two months.
Mrs. Barch has directed them into position, but Rob isn’t paying attention. He’s just looking at Juliet. He looks incredulous, assuming I got the word right on the SATs. Like he can’t quite believe she’s there. With him.
When Rob and I were in the third grade, we used to play “one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war” in the car. His hands were bigger than mine, and eventually he’d win, but we used to argue about whether it was against the rules to “hide” or not. Meaning, was I allowed to drop my thumb down by my fingers so he couldn’t catch me? Debates on the subject were usually settled with Rob’s mom buying us ice cream. But right now, above him, hidden in the wings, I can’t help but feel a little like my thumb. Like I’m hiding because I know the second I reveal myself, I will lose. And I’m just not ready for that.
“Hey,” Len says, “you still with me here? I could use a hand.”
I blink and look at him. The lights are coming up, and it’s easier to see now, which lucky for me makes him fully aware of the tears that are sliding down my cheeks.
“Yeah,” I say, swiping the back of my hand across my face. Len looks away and down at the stage, like he’s giving me some privacy.
“What happened?” he asks after a minute. He doesn’t take his eyes off Rob and Juliet, but something about his question makes me feel like he’s staring right into me. Like I can’t lie to him because he’s already seen the truth.
“We had a thing for a minute,” I whisper. “It didn’t work out.” I expect the confession to make me feel worse, but it doesn’t. It actually makes me feel a tiny bit better. Like a small weight has been lifted.
“Then he wasn’t your guy,” Len says. I glance at him. His jaw is set, and he looks stern. Even a little angry. It’s unnerving.
“I guess,” I say.
Len shakes his head. “You don’t get it,” he says. “If he walked away from you, to her, then he wasn’t yours.”
“How do you know?” I say. “What if he was and everything got screwed up?”
Len smirks. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Oh, really?” I say. “How does it work, then? Enlighten me.”
Len sighs, like he’s already frustrated. “Look, I don’t really know how else to put this. You don’t need to worry about some dumb guy falling in love with you. You’re you.”
“Exactly,” I say. I’m me. Rose Caplet. Plain brown hair and brown eyes and the daughter of a history professor, not a senator. I’m not on magazine covers, and I don’t do allergy commercials. I don’t even drive.
Len turns to me, and he’s looking at me so intensely, I think he might have just sucked the air out of my lungs. All of a sudden I feel like I can’t breathe. “Sometimes,” he starts, “the hardest part about letting someone go is realizing you were never meant to have them.”
His words hang in the air as Mrs. Barch dismisses the actors below. She cautions them to get their acts together before the next rehearsal. Juliet looks annoyed. The Belgian just shrugs. Rob doesn’t seem to hear anything; he’s just staring at Juliet.
I’m thinking about what Len just said, how he has it all wrong. Rob and I were meant to be together. This isn’t about letting go of him; it’s about balancing things back out. About righting whatever went completely wrong when Juliet stepped onto this campus.
Then, like it’s no big deal, Len stretches. “Looks like our work here is done.” He glances down to where Rob and Juliet are walking out of the auditorium, arm in arm. “Any fun weekend plans?” he asks me.
“No,” I lie. We’re going to Malibu. In fact, our stuff is already packed and we’re leaving right after I’m finished with this rehearsal, but I can’t tell Len. Charlie would kill me if I invited him. Not that I think he’d want to go. Besides Dorothy and Brittany, I’m not really sure who he hangs out with, but something tells me spending the weekend with Charlie, me, and Olivia isn’t high on his list.
“You should make some.” He grabs his backpack up by the handle. “Don’t let some guy stand in the way.”
Some guy. Right. I think about explaining this to Len. That Rob is not some guy. That I’m not the kind of girl that cries over boys. That this is different. That he was the one. But that sounds ridiculous, even in my head, so I know how it would sound coming out of my mouth. To Len.
“See ya,” he says, and then he’s hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder and heading down the stairs before I even have a chance to say good-bye.
“Where have you beeeen?” Olivia asks when I get to upper. She’s leaning against her car, and Charlie is inside, in the front seat. Charlie has her sunglasses on even though it’s completely cloudy out. The telltale sign that she’s pissed or upset about something. Probably the fact that I’m late. I went and dropped my books off at my locker after rehearsal, but it didn’t take more than five minutes, and I told them that we would probably run over.
“Sorry,” I say. “Rehearsal. You knew this.”
Olivia huffs, and I climb into the backseat. “Hey,” I say to Charlie, poking her in the shoulder.
“Jake is taking Big Red,” she says. “They’re meeting us there after surfing.” She turns around and slides her glasses up. Her face is blotchy. “I saw Rob get in with them.”
Olivia apparently has not heard this before now, because she spins around and puts her hand on my knee, right where Rob touched me after dinner the other night. It makes me jump.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “I’m so fucking pissed at him.”
Charlie rarely curses. One of her theories is that people respect you less if you curse. Plus, she reasons, this way, when you really need a curse word, you pull it out and bam, it works like a shotgun. Everyone listens. Charlie is very into everyone listening to her.
“At least Juliet won’t be there,” I squeak out.
“My feelings exactly,” Charlie says. The red is fading from her neck, and she looks at Olivia and lets out a long breath. “We could totally call Jake and cancel, but maybe Rob just needs some time away with us to realize he’s a moron. And we can enact Project Get Rid of Juliet.”
“Guys are stupid,” Olivia says, like she’s contributing something revelatory.
“Rob misses you. I’m sure he does. Maybe this Juliet thing was just a phase. Like the time Jake decided he was into flannel,” Charlie says.
Olivia wrinkles her nose and starts the car.
“Should we pick up bagels on the way?” Charlie asks.
“One step ahead of you.” Olivia reaches behind her and pulls up a bag from Grandma’s. She wags it in front of Charlie’s face.
“Olivia Diamond, I adore you,” Charlie says, snatching it out of her hands.
I slump back in my seat as we pull out of the parking lot. What if Charlie is right? I mean, it’s a long shot, and I know that. But what if some time away might make him realize his mistake? We have serious history. You can’t just throw all of that away on a whim. And he must be missing me. I know he is. I keep opening my phone to text him or pulling up my email when something funny happens. It feels like the entire world is composed of our inside jokes. Everything reminds me of him. Even just seeing the mailbox this morning made me think of the time in the sixth grade when we snuck out in the middle of the night to switch our mailboxes. We thought it would be a funny April Fools’ joke on our parents. We ended up breaking both of them, though, and had to use four months of our allowances to
replace them.
Grilled cheese makes me think of the time we tried to make some with my hair straightener. Math class makes me think of last spring, when Rob swore he had helped Mr. Stetzler pick out Converse at Foot Locker. My room reminds me of watching DVDs together. Even my parents are reminders of Rob. Like the entire world is reflecting him back to me in every single surface. He must be seeing me, too. . . . How could he not?
“Music, please,” Charlie says, holding her palm up like she’s asking me to slap her high five.
I spot Olivia’s iPod on the seat next to me and hand it to her. She puts on “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and we all start singing along. When we were younger, Juliet and I would put on performances for our parents in my living room. We would dress up in my mom’s cocktail dresses, the old ones from her brief Hollywood days, and make everyone gather around. Inevitably I would get shy right before, though, and Juliet would have to sing the entire thing herself.
Thinking about that now, it feels like thinking about a different person. The Juliet I knew isn’t here now. She’d never do this.
“Can I talk to you guys about something?” Olivia asks. She turns down the music, and Charlie makes a sound like she’s choking in disbelief.
“Be still my heart,” Charlie says. “She has silenced the Supremes.”
Olivia frowns, and Charlie holds up her hands. “Okay, okay,” she says apologetically. “What’s the what?”
“I really like Ben.” She glances nervously at Charlie, who rolls her eyes.
“We know, we know,” Charlie says. “You’re crazy about my hugely lame brother. So what?”
“So could you pretend he’s not your brother for a second?”
“How do you think I make it through the day?”
Olivia looks at me like she’s not sure if Charlie’s kidding.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Spit it out.”
“I think I’m ready,” Olivia says. “Not this weekend or anything. But I want to do it with him.”
Charlie balks in the front seat next to her, yanking her glasses up onto her head. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Olivia says. She looks a little proud of herself. “I know I said that stuff about college, and whatever.”
“Forget college,” Charlie says, waving a dismissing hand. “I’m just saying, Ben is a virgin for a reason.” Charlie arches around to look at me. “The man has read the entirety of Moby-Dick, like, four times.”
“It’s so weird,” Olivia says. “I never thought it would be him.” She sounds dreamy and distant, like she’s not really talking to us in particular.
I can’t believe how ridiculous it is that just a week ago I thought I was ready, that Rob was the one. It seems almost impossible, how much has changed.
“Okay,” Charlie says, raising her eyebrows. “Look, you like him. I love you. Therefore, I’m cool with this. But I’m not giving you pointers. That’s just creepy.”
“But you have to!” Olivia says. She snaps out of her state and slaps Charlie across the seat. “Who else am I going to ask?”
She’s right, of course, but something about the way she says it makes me sit back. I’m not jealous exactly. I don’t want to be with Ben, and I know Olivia’s been waiting for the right person, and all of that. I’m happy for her. She’s my friend and I love her. Of course I’m happy for her. But it’s another thing Charlie and Olivia will have that I don’t. They are already ridiculous beautiful, and they have boyfriends who don’t run off with other girls. Is it too much to ask that they don’t leave me in the dust on this, too? It feels like I’m standing on the opposite side of everyone else, and the longer time ticks on, the wider the split gets between us, like we’re icebergs drifting apart at the north pole. I just keep thinking of that superdepressing Planet Earth episode with the polar bears. Where the ice splits and that one lone bear just drifts out to sea. It’s enough to make me want to start weeping in the back of Olivia’s SUV.
“You remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books?” Olivia says.
“Don’t go getting all metaphoric on us now, O. It’s just sex. Use your words,” Charlie says.
“Noooo,” Olivia drags. “That’s not where I’m going with this.”
“Whatever,” Charlie says. “Can we please turn the music back on?” She reaches forward, and her seat belt snaps her back.
“Karma sucks,” Olivia says, smiling at her.
“I read those,” I say. I lean forward. “But I’d always skip to the end.”
“Everyone skipped to the end,” Charlie says. She’s wrestling with her strap, her arms flailing.
“I didn’t,” Olivia says. “It used to make me so upset when I’d finish one, because then there were no more surprises.”
“Weird child,” Charlie says. She finally frees herself. “But I cannot listen to the oldies anymore.”
Olivia flips her hand to say, Whatever, and Charlie puts her own iPod on.
“Anyway, I was thinking about those books because I was reading one to Drew. Like, it’s sort of how life is, you know? One decision leading to an entirely different chapter?”
“This is way deep,” Charlie says.
“Shut up,” Olivia says, tapping her fist on the steering wheel. “I’m serious.”
“I get it,” I say. “It’s definitely true. One moment can change everything.”
Charlie gives me a pained smile and wiggles her nose.
“If you could know your entire life now—like, if you could flip to the end—would you?” Olivia looks at Charlie and then at me.
“Definitely not,” Charlie says. “It would just bum me out that Jake is never going to get his act together. Also, what if I didn’t get into Middlebury? I’d rather wait it out.”
“I think I’d choose to know,” I say. “I’d like to be prepared.”
Olivia nods, and the song flips.
I would want to know. I do want to know. If I knew, maybe I could figure it out sooner. If I had any idea what was going through Rob’s head and how this would eventually play out, I could act accordingly. I could move on or hang on. I wouldn’t be caught in this in-between, feeling so completely useless.
The rest of the drive is uneventful. Charlie talks about whether or not we want to stay for Saturday night too, but we don’t reach any kind of consensus. Olivia’s house is right on the water. It’s part of the Malibu Colony, this überexclusive community that’s full of movie stars. Her neighbors used to be Zac and Vanessa, before they split.
There is a pool in the back, on the deck, and then steps down to the beach. The entire place is decorated in a million different shades of white and beige, and there are black-and-white photographs of Olivia and her little brothers covering the walls, and big glass bowls of shells sitting on coffee tables. Her house looks like the “after” on one of those home improvement shows.
We’re the first ones there. The boys will probably stop at In-N-Out Burger on their way, after surfing. I’m relieved they won’t be here for a little while. Just the thought of seeing Rob out of school is making my stomach knot. I don’t know what it will be like when it actually happens.
It’s cool when we step inside, the house full of ocean breeze—crisp and salty, the kind you can taste. Charlie and I toss off our shoes and race out to the sand. Olivia’s stretch of beach is a long one, and some of my favorite memories of the last four years are of waking up, still slightly drowsy, and walking in sweaters with steaming mugs of coffee down the shoreline.
“Wait for me!” Olivia calls. She’s already put on her swimsuit, a black bikini with multicolored polo horses.
The three of us drop down into the sand. The haze has lifted, and it’s sunny out. I close my eyes, lying down on my back. The warmth feels good, and for the first time since last Friday, I think maybe things will be okay. The familiar surroundings and the promise of us all spending time together reassure me. Rob will come to his senses. We’ll figure it out. That has to be the way the story ends.
&
nbsp; Scene Four
Charlie is drunk. We’ve been taking vodka shots by Olivia’s pool for the last hour, chasing them down with warm Diet Coke with lime. I’d put Charlie’s and Olivia’s count somewhere around five. I’ve been too nervous to have more than two shots, one and a half if you count the fact that I tipped most of the second one onto the deck when no one was watching. I know alcohol technically relaxes you, but I don’t want to be silly by the time Rob gets here. If we have to have a serious conversation, I want to be able to have it. Coherently.
Charlie is wearing a white halter top and a denim skirt and gold, dangly earrings she borrowed from Olivia’s mom’s bathroom. Olivia’s family keeps full wardrobes here even though Olivia says she can’t remember the last time her parents came down. Olivia is still in her bikini, but she has a see-through purple cover-up thrown over it. I have on a sundress I’ve had since the seventh grade. It’s one of those cotton ones from American Eagle Outfitters that Charlie hates. She didn’t say anything tonight when I put it on, though. She just complimented my hair.
Olivia is wandering around with the vodka, haphazardly pouring it into red party cups.
“Who are those for?” Charlie asks, and cracks up laughing. She’s trying to fish a swimming noodle out of the pool and is teetering in her platform wedges, her drink sloshing over the side of her cup.
“You are an inch from catastrophe,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.
Olivia comes over and tips the vodka bottle toward me, pouring me a full cup. “You need to drink more,” she informs me, and then taps her watch. “Any minute.”
Her cell phone blares. She answers it quickly.
“I told yooou,” she says into the phone, and then repeats some numbers, probably the gate code, and hangs up.
When You Were Mine Page 13
